In many places car manufacturers are not legally allowed to sell their cars directly to customers
I want to hear the excuse they made for this
Back when many of these laws were created, car manufacturers were way worse than franchise dealerships for the consumer.
Everything I’ve read said it had very little to do with concern for the consumer. As I understand it, car dealerships lobbied for these laws because, according to them, the manufacturers were being anti-competative and squeezing car dealers out of business. So the laws were passed to protect “small” dealers from big car manufacturers, not to protect the consumers.
But now they use that ubiquity to get higher prices through shady tactics. It needs changed again, this time in favor of the consumer.
Car dealership owners are a pretty big lobby, at least 20% of them are making 1.5m/y and tend to be very involved in local politics.